1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a computer server, and more specifically, relates to a server that receives transmissions of GPS data, text message data, status data relating to community re-entry programs (job training, temporary housing, rehabilitation, drug testing, life coaching, and similar re-entry programs), social services data, school data, demographic data, time and date data, analyzes these data transmissions, and generates results according to the analysis.
2. Description of the Related Art
Each local government spends considerable money tracking and monitoring post release convicts living within the county after they are released from incarceration. After a convict is approved for release from incarceration, he may be subject to parole, probation, or some form of post-release supervision. Usually, the parolee/probationer (“P/P”) must register with a local authority and he is assigned a case officer with whom he must check in periodically. A case officer is usually charged with one hundred or more P/Ps and he must make time to monitor and track each P/P. The P/P must physically report to the case officer personally on a periodic basis.
Each local government must provide enough case officers for a given population of P/Ps to handle in person meetings with the P/Ps, whether in office or in the field. Most of the time, these reporting meetings are routine and no issues result from these meetings. Even though these meetings are routine and without any important issue to be resolved, the P/Ps still need to report every month (or whatever the required frequency is mandated). This in person reporting system is an obstacle for P/Ps who has jobs or has no access to transportation. The P/P must take time off work and arrange for travel to the case officer's office for a short appointment. The case officer, on the other hand, must make himself available under his supervision; if either the case officer or the P/P is running late, it puts the rest of the case officer's appointments behind schedule, forcing appointments to be rescheduled. However, with jail overcrowding become a drain on states and counties, the case officer's P/P caseload has been growing dramatically without a corresponding growth in resources to help manage this larger case load. Case officers now have to determine which P/Ps are at greatest risk of recidivism requiring immediate intervention and which P/Ps are a lesser risk and to leave them alone. Case officers do not want to waste their time with well-behaved P/Ps when there are at risk P/Ps that require close monitoring and intervention to prevent recidivism. The challenge for case officers is determining and prioritizing which P/Ps are at greatest risk of recidivism requiring the most of amount of intervention.
Further, the P/P population throughout the country is increasing because of the trend away from incarceration of non-violent, non-dangerous offenders towards community correction solutions such that agencies managing P/P populations are now charged with managing a new population of offenders; this community corrections approach is broadly described as “post release community supervision” which include both the P/P population and this new group of offenders. Henceforth, “P/P” as used herein includes both probationers/parolees and the post-release community supervised offenders, collectively. At this larger scale, a lot of time and resources are wasted by case officers personally meeting with low risk P/Ps or responding to an incident where his P/P already committed a crime (recidivate) instead of intervening to help those P/Ps at greatest risk of recidivism. Preventing recidivism saves municipal money and resources by avoiding costs related arrest, incarceration and prosecution. Further, the setting described above follows a reactive model, i.e., the case officer monitors a P/P and reacts to what the P/P does or does not do. The case officer does not have information to anticipate possible what may happen to the P/P, thus the case officer cannot act more proactively to guide the P/P to become a productive member of the society.
Therefore, there is a need for a proactive monitoring, supervision and management system that is based on a “recidivism prevention model” which enables case officers and agency administrators to handle and manage a larger case load by anticipating which P/Ps are at greatest risk to recidivate and it is this system that the present invention is primarily directed to.